The Search for Modern China is a 1990 non-fiction book by Jonathan D. Spence, published by Century Hutchinson and W. W. Norton & Company.
It covers the period 1600 to 1989. [1] According to Spence, the goal was to explain how Modern China was created rather than writing about Modern China directly. [2] Spence stated that he chose 1600 as the starting point so he could "get a full sense of how China's current problems have arisen, and of what resources [...] the Chinese can call upon to solve them." [3]
Theresa Munford in Far Eastern Economic Review , described it as "more of a textbook" than The Gate of Heavenly Peace , which she described as lighter reading. [4]
The total page count is 876. [5]
There is one further reading list per chapter, and the book has some footnotes. She stated the items of photography "are refreshingly different from the ones that are normally reproduced in Chinese history books", "especially the black and white" ones. [4] There are 49 maps and 49 tables. [5]
Very little hanzi are in the book. According to Munford, the ones there "are so poorly printed as to hardly be legible." [4]
George Jochnowitz of National Review wrote that the book had been "highly praised"; Jochnowitz added that he felt this was "deservedly so", citing the "relaxed and natural style" and "fascinating information". [6]
Munford praised how the book is "well-designed". [4]
Vera Schwarcz of The New York Times wrote that the book was "excellent" and praised its "thematic focus", "wealth of illustrations", and "narrative technique" that she stated were not present in other books. [1]
Frank Ching stated that of Spence's works, this was "the most ambitious". [7]
Arif Dirlik described the book's writing style as an "easy fluency that makes it accessible to the nonspecialist reader." [8]
Chinese historiography is the study of the techniques and sources used by historians to develop the recorded history of China.
Wang Zhaoming, widely known by his pen name Wang Jingwei, was a Chinese politician who was president of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, a puppet state of Japan. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in opposition to the right-wing government in Nanjing, but later became increasingly anti-communist after his efforts to collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party ended in political failure.
Song Jiaoren was a Chinese republican revolutionary, political leader and a founder of the Kuomintang (KMT). Song Jiaoren led the KMT to electoral victories in China's first democratic election. He based his appeal on the upper class gentry, landowners, and merchants. Historians have concluded that provisional president, Yuan Shikai, was responsible for his assassination on March 20, 1913.
Wu Jingheng, commonly known by his courtesy name Wu Zhihui, also known as Wu Shi-Fee, was a Chinese linguist and philosopher who was the chairman of the 1912–13 Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation that created Zhuyin and standardized Guoyu pronunciation.
The Jiaqing Emperor, also known by his temple name Emperor Renzong of Qing, personal name Yongyan, was the sixth emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fifth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. He was the 15th son of the Qianlong Emperor. During his reign, he prosecuted Heshen, the corrupt favorite of his father and attempted to restore order within the empire while curbing the smuggling of opium into China. Assessments of his reign are mixed, either seen as the "beginning of the end" of the Qing dynasty, or as a period of moderate reform that presaged the intellectual movements of the 1860s.
The New Culture Movement was a progressive sociopolitical movement in China during the 1910s and 1920s. Participants criticized many aspects of traditional Chinese society, in favor of new formulations of Chinese culture informed by modern ideals of mass political participation. Arising out of disillusionment with traditional Chinese culture following the failure of the Republic of China to address China's problems, it featured scholars such as Chen Duxiu, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Hengzhe, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, He Dong, Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong, Bing Xin, and Hu Shih, many classically educated, who led a revolt against Confucianism. The movement was launched by the writers of New Youth magazine, where these intellectuals promoted a new society based on unconstrained individuals rather than the traditional Confucian system. In 1917, Mr. Hu Shih put forward the famous “Eight Principle”, that is, abandon the ancient traditional writing method and use vernacular.
Lin Zexu, courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was a head of state (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty best known for his role in the First Opium War of 1839–42. He was from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Lin's forceful opposition to the opium trade was a primary catalyst for the First Opium War. He is praised for his constant position on the "moral high ground" in his fight, but he is also blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem. The Emperor endorsed the hardline policies and anti-drugs movement advocated by Lin, but placed all responsibility for the resulting disastrous Opium War onto Lin.
Arthur David Waley was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1952, receiving the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953, and being invested as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1956.
Jonathan Dermot Spence was a British-American historian, sinologist, and author specialised in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most widely read book is The Search for Modern China, a survey of the last several hundred years of Chinese history based on his popular course at Yale. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he published over a dozen books on China. Spence's major interest was modern China, especially the Qing dynasty, and relations between China and the West. Spence frequently used biographies to examine cultural and political history. Another common theme is the efforts of both Westerners and Chinese "to change China", and how such efforts were frustrated.
Anarchism in China was a strong intellectual force in the reform and revolutionary movements in the early 20th century. In the years before and just after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty Chinese anarchists insisted that a true revolution could not be political, replacing one government with another, but had to overthrow traditional culture and create new social practices, especially in the family. "Anarchism" was translated into Chinese as 無政府主義 literally, "the doctrine of no government."
The Tongzhi Restoration was an attempt to arrest the dynastic decline of the Qing dynasty by restoring the traditional order. The harsh realities of the Opium Wars, the unequal treaties, and the mid-century mass uprisings of the Taiping Rebellion caused Qing officials to recognize the need to strengthen China. The Tongzhi Restoration was named for the Tongzhi Emperor, and was engineered by the young emperor's mother, the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908). The restoration, however, which applied "practical knowledge" while reaffirming the old mentality, was not a genuine program of modernization. Academics are divided as to whether the Tongzhi Restoration arrested the dynastic decline or merely delayed its inevitable occurrence.
Arif Dirlik was a Turkish-American historian who published on historiography and political ideology in modern China, as well as issues in modernity, globalization, and postcolonial criticism. Dirlik received a BSc in electrical engineering at Robert College, Istanbul in 1964 and a PhD in history at the University of Rochester in 1973.
Vera Schwarcz was the Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. Her BA was from Vassar College, with a MA from Yale, where she studied with Jonathan Spence, a MAA from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. From 1979 to 1980, she studied at Peking University as part the first group of American students admitted after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. In addition to works of history, Schwarcz writes poetry.
The historical Kuomintang socialist ideology is a form of socialist thought developed in mainland China during the early Republic of China. The Tongmenghui revolutionary organization led by Sun Yat-sen was the first to promote socialism in China.
The following is a timeline of the history of the Chinese city of Guangzhou, also formerly known as Panyu, Canton, and Kwang-chow.
Kaozheng, alternatively called kaoju xue was a Chinese school of thought emphasizing philology that was active during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) from c. 1600 to 1850. It was most prominent during the reigns of the Qianlong Emperor and Jiaqing Emperor; because of this, it is often also referred to as the Qian–Jia school (乾嘉學派). Their approach corresponds to that of modern textual criticism, and was also associated with empiricism as regards scientific topics.
The China Statistical Yearbook, also translated into English as China Statistical Annual, is a large-scale yearbook of statistical information comprehensively reflecting the economic and social development of the People's Republic of China. It covers the statistics of China and all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government for the previous year, and selects the main indicators for several years and recent years. it has been published annually since 1982 by China Statistics Press.
Liu Kwang-ching, who sometimes published under the name K.C. Liu, was a Chinese-born American historian of China. He taught at University of California-Davis from 1963 until his retirement in 1993. He is best known for his scholarship in late-Qing history, astute bibliographical work, and edited volumes, including co-editing Cambridge History of China volumes.
Tianyi bao was an anarcho-feminist magazine which was published in Tokyo, Japan, for two years between 1907 and 1908. It was started by the Chinese exiles and closed down by the Government of Japan.
Zhang Ruoming was a Chinese scholar of French literature, translator and journalist. She was a professor at Yunnan University and considered an authority on the French author André Gide. She was one of the first Chinese women to earn a doctorate in France, graduating from the University of Lyon. In her youth, she was a leader in the May Fourth Movement in Tianjin and was known for her political association with Zhou Enlai and the Chinese Communist Party in France in the early 1920s.